regular
/ˈrɛɡjələr/adjective, noun, adverb
following a consistent, customary, or predictable pattern
From Latin regul- (rule).
Lineage
The story
Picture an ancient Roman carpenter laying a straight wooden strip across a board: that piece of wood was a regula, a physical standard for deciding what counted as straight. The same image became metaphorical in Late Latin regularis, “guided by rules,” and then entered medieval English through the language of monasteries, where a regular person followed a religious rule rather than living as a secular outsider. By the late sixteenth century, the word had escaped the cloister and begun describing predictable shapes, actions, and habits. Its relatives still preserve the carpenter’s measuring-stick idea: to regulate is to bring something into line, while a ruler can be either the person who governs or the tool that checks straightness. Today, slang can make regular mean dull or unexciting—and in skateboarding, “regular” identifies a left-foot-forward stance—so one straight Roman line has wandered into monasteries, grammar, chicken restaurants, and skate parks.
Modern usage
Dull, tasteless, or unexciting; alternatively, a left-foot-forward skateboarding stance.
- Heard in
- slang · skateboarding
Words from the same roots
regul- · Latin, ‘rule, straight line, standard, or pattern’
Derivedrule, regulate, regulation, ruler, regularity, regimen, rectangle